About the Author

“Trusted Crime Data, Made Clear.”

Crime in America.Net is administered by Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Others assist him.

Contact us at leonardsipes@gmail.com.

This website is operated via Leonard A. Sipes, LLC.

Sipes has a lifelong professional commitment to the criminal justice system, starting as a police officer and working his way through top positions within the justice system. He retired in June of 2016 as the Senior Public Affairs Specialist and Social Media Manager for a federal criminal justice agency.

He advised presidential and gubernatorial campaigns.

Sipes graduated from The Johns Hopkins University with a Certificate of Advanced Study in Liberal Arts. He received a Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice/Criminology from the University of Baltimore.

Sipes was a successful media affairs and social media manager with a federal criminal justice agency with 35 years of national and state government experience; he accumulated multiple awards including best government customer service, best use of technology, best teamwork, top awards for podcasting and audio, and many first-place awards for television hosting and production. Sipes has over 50 national and regional awards for his media relations work.

His personal website is LeonardSipes.Com.

He is the author of “Success With the Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization,” available at Amazon.

Sipes managed the most popular audio and video podcasting and social media site in the US for select crime and justice issues; he created the first state and federal podcasting series and social media sites.

Sipes was the primary spokesperson for crime prevention for the federal government for 10 years as the Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the National Criminal Justice Reference Service and the Director of Information Services for the National Crime Prevention Council (both funded by the US Department of Justice).

He co-managed the most successful public service ad campaign in the nation (McGruff the Crime Dog-Take a Bite Out of Crime).

He was a Security Planner for the United States Senate, Sergeant at Arms. He started a plan to secure every Senate office beyond Washington, D.C.

He was the longest-lasting Director of Public Information for the State of Maryland (Maryland Department of Public Safety); he was a former Associate Professor for Criminology and Public Affairs-University of Maryland-University College.

Sipes effectively managed thousands of media contacts and appeared on every national television and radio network multiple times; every national newspaper and wire service quoted him.

He created successful state media campaigns; produced a unique and emulated style of proactive public relations; wrote and managed hundreds of publications; went from 20 to 50 percent approval in agency public opinion; he has vast experience in big-complicated agencies.

The RSS feed is http://crimeinamerica.net/?feed=rss2 .

Why I Believe in Telling the Truth About Crime, Justice, and Law Enforcement

I’ve spent my life inside the world of crime and justice — not as a distant observer, but as someone who’s lived it, measured it, and tried to explain it to the public. After decades in criminal justice communications and as the founder of Crime in America.Net, I’ve seen how easily facts can be bent, ignored, or politicized. I’ve worked alongside law enforcement officers, policymakers, and journalists. I’ve read more government reports and crime surveys than most people knew existed. Through it all, one conviction has guided me: truth matters, even when it’s inconvenient.

I didn’t start writing about crime to score political points or to defend any side. I write because the public deserves clarity in a field flooded with confusion. Every day, people are told that crime is either spiraling out of control or magically disappearing — sometimes in the same news cycle. The truth is almost always in the middle, but that’s the hardest place to get anyone to look.

I believe in telling the truth about crime, justice, and law enforcement because I’ve seen what happens when we don’t. When we distort data, we make bad policy. When we silence honest officers or demonize entire professions, we lose trust. And when fear replaces facts, we stop listening to one another.

There are three beliefs that set me apart from most voices in this field — and they all challenge the status quo.

First: We must measure crime honestly — not politically.
Official numbers are never the whole story. If reporting drops, crime doesn’t vanish. If one city claims victory while national trends shift in the same direction, that’s not leadership; that’s luck. We need data systems that track what people actually experience, not just what gets entered into a database.

Second: Reform and enforcement are not opposites.
We’ve allowed the debate to harden into false choices: “pro-police” versus “anti-police,” “reform” versus “safety.” That binary thinking helps no one. Real reform means giving law enforcement the tools, training, and public trust to do their jobs better. Accountability isn’t anti-police — it’s what makes policing sustainable.

Third: Fear of crime is a data point too.
We track incidents, not emotions. But fear shapes behavior, migration, politics, and community life more powerfully than most statistics. If people feel unsafe, then we’ve failed, even if the charts look good. Public safety isn’t just the absence of crime — it’s the presence of confidence.

I write because the nation’s conversation on crime has become too loud and too shallow. We argue about headlines instead of evidence. We’ve forgotten that behind every number is a human being — sometimes a victim, sometimes an officer, sometimes both.

If you believe in facts over politics, in transparency over spin, and in truth over convenience, then join me. Read the data. Question the headlines. Demand better from the experts, the media, and your leaders.

Because until we agree to tell the truth about crime, we’ll never agree on how to fix it.